ARCC art prof and alums featured in “Intersections” exhibit

An art faculty member at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and her students will have their collaborative work displayed as part of Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s newest exhibit “Intersections.”

Laura Migliorino, Anoka-Ramsey Community College professor, took this photo, one of a series of seven titled “Minnesota Butterfly,” which will appear in Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s new art show titled “Intersections.” Photo submitted

The show, which opens Jan. 20 and runs through Feb. 26, is the collaboration of 11 regional colleges and university.

The show is comprised of 14 teams of artists, all art department chairwomen from the Twin Cities area and their students or alumni, both male and female. The themes center on women, leadership and the power of collaboration.

Laura Migliorino, former art department chairwoman at ARCC, is well-represented in the show along with alumni Yumi Nagaoka and Mayu Nagaoka. Yumi earned an associate in arts degree in 2007 and an associate in fine arts degree in theater in 2010 and Mayu earned her associate in arts degree in 2006 and an associate of fine arts degree in art in 2009 at the college.

For the MCAD exhibit, the women collaborated on a series of seven photos, titled “Minnesota Butterfly.” Among the photos, the project shows a traditional Japanese woman, dressed in kimono, morphing into a young man.

“It’s an opportunity to see a direct interaction between a professor and a student,” Migliorino said about the exhibit. Particularly important to understand the broader, far-reaching relationships because masses of people are now going to college, she added.

The “Minnesota Butterfly” theme is based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly” and “M Butterfly,” written by David Henry Hwang.

Migliorino is Italian-American, the Nagaoka sisters are Japanese-American. Puccini’s opera was penned by an Italian composer. And, of course, both productions are Japanese-oriented with an American main character.

“The triangle brought in culture resources from all of our backgrounds,” Migliorino said, regarding subject material for the photo series. “It seemed like a perfect fit.”

This MCAD show uniquely features chairwomen, a drastic change from about 10 years ago, when the positions were held by mostly men, Migliorino said.

When Migliorino saw the number of women who now head departments, she was taken aback.

“It’s astonishing to see what was purely the bastion of men literally have flipped. This is a huge sea change,” she said.

The collaborations in the exhibit spurred conversations on the arts, joined authorship, shifted points of view, converged cultures and encouraged exchanges across time and space.

Migliorino wants visitors to the exhibit to walk away with a wow factor. To show just how strong the arts are in Minnesota.

“We just knocked it out of the park in Minnesota,” she said of the exhibit. “The work is stunning.”